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02 Dec Alexis Vassiley In one of its many position papers advocating fee deregulation, the Group of Eight (Go8) universities inadvertently let out of the bag just how affordable free education is. In “No such thing as a free degree”, it calculated that the total additional funding required to fund free education...CONTINUE READING

17 Nov Sandra Bloodworth The scenes of people chipping away at the Berlin Wall are still as thrilling today as when I watched them 25 years ago. But the hypocritical glee of the Western media and politicians was nauseating. One social scientist declared “the end of history”, while economists blathered about the vi...CONTINUE READING

17 Nov Nick Everett In a speech to an Australian Friends of Palestine Association dinner in Adelaide on 7 November, former foreign minister Bob Carr said that he has had an “epiphany on the changes in Israel”. Carr, who along with Bob Hawke founded Labor Friends of Israel in 1977, announced that he is now pat...CONTINUE READING

15 Nov Corey Oakley Well finally there seems to be a consensus, at least if you leave aside the assorted outriders of the lunar right. Tony Abbott is a national embarrassment. A small minded, parochial, used-car salesman of a politician who used Australia’s moment in the global spotlight to make what Bill Sho...CONTINUE READING

06 Nov Tom O’Lincoln What they don’t teach us in school: in early Sydney, a NSW Corps officer told visiting commissioner Bigge that the danger of outside invasion was virtually nil. In fact, he said, the danger was greater from fraternisation between convicts and Irish soldiers. Expert opinion has always known...CONTINUE READING

30 Oct Louise O’Shea The reaction to Antony Loewenstein’s insightful opinion piece in the Guardian about the state of feminist social commentary in the West demonstrates the veracity of his argument. To begin with, the tonnage of complaints about a man daring to criticise Western feminism comically illustrates...CONTINUE READING

22 Oct Daniel Lopez It’s rare for the left to receive gifts from the establishment. Yet the leak of Professor Barry Spurr’s private email conversations is a gift if ever there was one. And we can happily predict that this gift will keep on giving. Barry has been suspended. And better still, the emails reveal...CONTINUE READING

21 Oct Louise O’Shea We all know about the reactionaries on the wrong side of the marriage equality debate – the kind of people who light a candle for Bob Menzies every Sunday and for whom rock and roll represented the beginning of the end: the protectors of family values, cheerleaders for conformity and uphol...CONTINUE READING

21 Oct Allen Myers The United States government claims to be waging “humanitarian” war against terrorism. But its real record is revealed by what it is doing to Cuba. On 28 October, for the 23rd time, a resolution will be introduced into the United Nations General Assembly calling for an end to the half-cent...CONTINUE READING